Table of Contents

Foreword: The Right Thing to Do (Scott Cook).

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction: The Customer-Community.

Is Commerce Antithetical to Online Community?

Part One: Why Customer-Community?

1. The Business Case.

How Customer-Communities Advance.

Your Business Goals.

2. The Customer Case.

E-Commerce Experiences That Span.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Individual, Social, and Spiritual.

Part Two: Customer-Community Basics.

3. Twelve Principles for Building Community.

The Foundation for Strong Communities.

4. Customer-Community Profiles.

Ten Types and Thirty-Five Examples of Customer-Communities and Their Defining Characteristics.

5. Growing Your Community.

Overcoming the Inherent Challenges of Large-Scale Communities.

6. Understanding Community Bonds.

Discovering the Intrinsic Bonds Within Your Customer Base.

Part Three: Customer-Community and the Bottom Line.

7. Creating Value from Customer-Communities.

Sixteen Bottom-Line Possibilities.

8. Organizational Issues and Roles.

Aligning Strategy, Structure, Communication, and Leadership.

9. Before You Start.

Ten Questions to Help You Think Through the Issues.

Afterword: Turning Customer-Communities into Gold, Harry Potter Style (Michael Lowenstein).

Notes.

Index.

The Internet is the world's largest marketplace and provides businesses with the ability to interact with their market in a much more direct and tailored way than ever before. Customer.Community takes a new look at online communities as a source of value for both customers and businesses; it shows how to build an online "customer community" that gives customers a reason to stay loyal. Drew Banks and Kim Daus explain exactly what the customer community is and then reveal the tenets that will make it strong: sustainability, size and scalability, social connectivity, and soul. The authors show how to "communitize" commerce, build a solid base of repeat customers, and create value for the customer, and they explain how to manage a site in a cost-effective way. Customer.Community will help cultivate a mind-set to leverage the collective, untapped power of your customer base.